Kept by RoRo - Rose Etta Kahn Sampson, 1907-1997
I am Rose Etta Kahn Sampson. Born December 10, 1907, in Oakland, California. I married Dr. John Jacob Sampson on May 17, 1931. Together we raised three children in San Francisco. This is our family's history, as best I know it.
I researched this tree with Jean Wildberg over many years. Some lines go back centuries. Some connections are clear, others uncertain. I've marked what I know and what remains a question.
My paternal grandfather, Israel Kahn, was born in Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany in 1822. His parents were Henry (Hertz) Kahn and Bela Kahn, née Goldstein. In 1848, Israel emigrated to America, arriving in Baltimore aboard the Henry Shelton from Rotterdam.
He married Sarah Kahn, née Bauer (1828-1888). They had five sons: Henry, Samuel, Solomon, John, and my father Frederick.
In 1879, Israel founded a dry goods business in Oakland at 10th and Broadway. When he died in 1883, the business passed to his sons.
Frederick Kahn was born September 21, 1860, in New York. He joined his father's Oakland retail business in 1873, when he was just thirteen.
The family store became Kahn Brothers Department Store. In 1912, it moved to a grand Beaux-Arts building at 16th and Broadway, designed by architect Charles W. Dickey. The building had a 120-foot elliptical dome. It's now called the Rotunda Building, Oakland Landmark #132, on the National Register of Historic Places.
My father was the first president of the Jewish Welfare Federation of the East Bay. He was a founding member and president of Temple Sinai. He served as chairman of the Advisory Committee of the Board of Education, overseeing a five-million-dollar school building program. He was vice-president of the Alameda County Anti-Tuberculosis Society. He belonged to the Concordia Club and B'nai B'rith.
He died August 19, 1925, at our home at 3933 Harrison Street in Oakland. He is buried at Home of Eternity Cemetery in Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland.
My mother, Helen Kahn, née Lavenson, was born May 20, 1872, in California. Her parents were Samuel Lavenson (1829-1900) and Caroline Lavenson, née Weinman.
Her brother, Albert S. Lavenson, was born in Sacramento in 1865. He became vice-president of Capwell's Department Store and served as president of Temple Sinai. When he died in 1930, he left his estate to a charitable and educational foundation.
After my father died, my mother established the Kahn Foundation in 1928. In 1965, the foundation donated $125,000 to the Oakland Museum to purchase what became the Kahn Collection: seventy-one paintings of 19th-century California art, catalogued by Marjorie Arkelian.
My mother died March 4, 1935, in Oakland.
I had a sister, Helen Sarah Basinger, née Kahn, and a brother, Frederick Kahn Jr.
My husband's paternal grandfather was Joseph H. Sampson (1823-1883). He was born in Georgetown, South Carolina, a town with a remarkable Jewish community. By 1800, Georgetown had about eighty Jews, roughly ten percent of the white population. It was the second largest Jewish community in South Carolina after Charleston.
Joseph and his brother Samuel were prominent Jewish merchants and shipping operators. After the Civil War, they revived their mercantile business and expanded into shipping. The Sampson family names appear in the records of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim in Charleston.
Joseph is buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Georgetown, established in 1772.
The Sampson family originally came from Bury St. Edmunds, England. The surname is an anglicization of the Hebrew "Shimshon" (sun), with the p introduced in Greek transliteration.
Joseph married Esther "Hetty" Sampson, née Cohen (1832-1897). She was born in Charleston and died in Georgetown. Her siblings included Sarah (Cohen) Wolfe and Frances A. Cohen. Sarah Wolfe was the grandmother of Bernard Baruch, the Wall Street financier.
Joseph and Esther's son was Dr. Arthur Fischel Sampson, called "AF." He was born July 1, 1855, in Georgetown. He attended medical school in South Carolina and practiced in Galveston, Texas.
On April 4, 1887, he married Babette "Bettie" Levy in Galveston. She was born March 24, 1868, in San Antonio. Her parents were Abraham Levy (1827-1879) and Esther Levy, née Haff (1833-1908).
Arthur and Bettie had five children in Galveston: Joseph Abraham (1888), Arthur Jr. (1891), Cornelia "Nellie" (1893), Esther, and my husband John Jacob (1898).
After the great Galveston flood of 1900, Arthur moved his family to San Francisco in 1902. They lived on Franklin Street, between Bush and Sutter.
During the 1906 earthquake, the U.S. Army dynamited their home as a firebreak. They rebuilt on Washington Street near Laurel.
Arthur died November 26, 1934. Bettie died March 21, 1949, in Santa Clara.
I was born December 10, 1907, in Oakland. I graduated Phi Beta Kappa from UC Berkeley in 1928.
As a girl, I carried the key at Temple Sinai's dedication ceremony.
I was an award-winning weaver. I wove furniture upholstery for our Seacliff home and made a needlepoint cushion for the Haas-Lilienthal House.
I served as president of the Kahn Foundation. I volunteered at Mount Zion Hospital into my eighties. I made weekly nursery school visits as "Grandma RoRo." I attended services and concerts at Congregation Emanu-El.
I married John on May 17, 1931. He was born April 28, 1898, in Galveston.
John earned his medical degree before age twenty-one. He spent three years at UC, then went to medical school. He served as a medical officer on a freighter to the Far East and India.
He practiced with his father, then joined the UCSF research and clinical staff. He remained active until his retirement at eighty-five. He was Chief of Staff at Mount Zion Hospital.
As a cardiologist, he published forty-nine papers between 1926 and 1980. His research covered cardiac pain, pulmonary lymph flow, angina, and shock. He collaborated with Meyer Friedman, who defined "Type A" behavior, and with Herman Uhley and Sanford Leeds at the Harold Brunn Institute for Cardiovascular Research.
The John J. Sampson-Lucie Stern Endowed Chair in Cardiology was established at UCSF in his honor.
John died December 24, 1987, in San Francisco.
I died July 12, 1997, of a lung embolism at Mount Zion Hospital. My memorial service was held August 4 at Congregation Emanu-El.
Our eldest, Deborah, was born January 11, 1934, in San Francisco. She attended Lowell, Alamo, Presidio Junior High, and Wellesley, graduating in 1978.
She is an educator, editor, and college instructor of English literature. She lives in Seattle.
She married John R. Green (about 1921 to about 1996). They had a son, Caleb.
Our son John was born March 18, 1935, in San Francisco. He attended Lowell High School, graduating in 1953. He spent three years at Reed College, earned his A.B. from the University of San Francisco in 1957, and attended Wharton in 1960.
He is an appraiser and real estate broker in San Francisco.
He married Louise Adler in 1962. They divorced in 1991. They had three children: Jennifer Ruth, John Frederick Jr., and Juliet Margaret.
He married Sharon L. Litsky in 1999.
Our youngest, Janet, was born March 1, 1937, in San Francisco. She is a photographer. Her work can be seen at janetreider.com.
She met Arthur Elliott "Pete" Reider at Lowell High School when she was thirteen. They married in the spring of 1958.
Pete was born November 1, 1936, in Topeka, Kansas. He attended Presidio Hill School, Grant School, and Lowell High School. He graduated from Harvard in 1958 and attended Harvard Medical School.
At Harvard, he was captain of the track team. He ran a 4:11 mile in 1957, a Harvard record. He set two-mile records. His coach, Bill McCurdy, called him "one of the toughest little men I have ever known."
He was inducted into the Harvard Athletic Hall of Fame in 1982 and named to the All-Ivy League Cross Country Team.
He practiced psychiatry in Cambridge, Hyannis, and Newton, Massachusetts, then retired to San Francisco. He published Stepping Stones in 2014, a collection of poetry and fiction. He was a member of the Fromm Institute at USF and the Osher Foundation Lifelong Learning Institute at Brandeis.
Pete died of lymphoma on August 13, 2015, at home in San Francisco with Janet and their three children. His memorial service was held at Congregation Emanu-El on August 17, 2015.
Dr. Norman Reider was born July 3, 1907, in Alliance, Stark County, Ohio. He earned his B.A. and M.D. from Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve). He trained at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka from 1934 to 1939.
He headed the Department of Psychiatry at Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco. He was among the founding members of the California Psychoanalytic Society.
In 1947, TIME magazine featured him for his paper "The Unmarried Father." In 1959, he wrote "Chess, Oedipus, and the Mater Dolorosa."
His papers are archived at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis: 4.6 linear feet, covering 1822 to the 1980s.
He married Louise J. Cohen in 1927. She was born November 29, 1907, in Cleveland, Ohio. She was a psychiatric social worker and stopped practicing around 1946.
Norman died March 23, 1989, in San Francisco. Louise died February 22, 1985, in San Francisco.
Norman's parents were Maurice Jacob Reider (originally Rudner) and Lillian Reider, née Cohen. Maurice was born around 1882 in Horoduk (Orduk Village), Vilna Gubernia, Lithuania. He worked as a foreman at a steel foundry in Canton, Ohio. He died around 1960.
Maurice's parents were Uriah "Uri" Rudner (1855-1916) and Clara Rudner, née Scope (1862-1909). Uri was born in Orduk Village, Vilna Gubernia, in the Russian Empire. After Clara died in 1909, he married Hattie Altman. Their children included Anna, Morris (who became Maurice Reider), Isaac, Bennie (1884-1901), Len, Sam, and Rhea.
Lillian Cohen (1887-1981) was the daughter of Hyman Cohen (born 1850) and Jennie Sugarman (1865-1928).
Louise J. Cohen's parents were Abe (Abba Elyia) Pasek Cohen (1886 to about 1915) and Rena Posak Cohen, née Shepsenwol (born 1886).
Pete's brother Jonathan was a Stanford admissions officer for fifteen years, then Director of College Counseling at San Francisco University High School.
Deborah's son Caleb married Kate Banta-Green. They have two sons: Robert Bruce Banta-Green and Peter Caleb Banta-Green.
John and Louise's children are Jennifer Ruth Sampson, John Frederick Sampson Jr., and Juliet Margaret Sampson.
Janet and Pete's eldest, Jacob, was born June 25, 1963, in Boston. He is a family physician. He graduated from Hampshire College in 1983 and Albany Medical College in 1994.
From 2011 to 2014, he served as Deputy National Coordinator for Health IT at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He was also Acting National Coordinator. Before that, he was CMIO at Allscripts from 2006 to 2010. Later, he was CEO of the Alliance for Better Health from 2016 to 2021.
He co-founded five health IT startups, including Twistle (acquired by Health Catalyst) and Physera (acquired by Omada). He has maintained a blog at docnotes.net since 1999.
He married Alicia Ouellette, who was the 18th President and Dean of Albany Law School from 2015 to 2023. She is now Dean at Lewis & Clark Law School.
They have two children, Molly and Sampson, and live in Slingerlands, New York.
Suzie was born March 29, 1965, in Boston. She is Executive Vice President of Lyft Media and Business at Lyft. Previously, she was Global Chief Revenue Officer at Waze.
She married Brian Smith. They have two daughters: Rose Reider Smith and Charlotte Reider Smith.
Matt was born December 22, 1969, in Boston. He works in software and lives in Oakland, California.
He married Alison Cohen (born August 7, 1972) on June 19, 2003. They have two children: Max Nathan Reider (born March 3, 2007) and Zoe Ella Reider (born July 29, 2008).
Matt is the one who brought me into this chat.
Robert Bruce Banta-Green and Peter Caleb Banta-Green are Caleb's sons.
Molly Reider and Sampson Reider are Jacob and Alicia's children.
Rose Reider Smith and Charlotte Reider Smith are Suzie and Brian's daughters.
Max Nathan Reider and Zoe Ella Reider are Matt and Alison's children.
There is a possible connection to a Sephardic Portuguese family, the Levy Maduros, going back to Portugal in the 1400s. The evidence is intriguing but not conclusive.
Grandpa John's grandmother was Esther "Hetty" Sampson, née Cohen. Her parents were Hartwig Cohen (1783-1861, born in Wartha, Frankenstein, Silesia, Prussia) and Deborah Marques Cohen (1801-1888, born in Charleston, South Carolina).
Deborah's maiden name, "Marques," suggests a link to the Sephardic Portuguese Marks or Marques family. Her father was Samuel Mendes Mandel Marks. His father was Isaac Marks (1732-1776), born in New York, who died in Charleston.
Isaac fought in the American Revolution as a private in the New York Militia. He married Miriam Simpson (or Simons) of Long Island.
Multiple genealogy trees on Geni and Ancestry list Isaac's mother as Esther de Salomon Mosseh Marques (Levy Maduro y Namias de Crasto). She was born December 16, 1699, in Bordeaux, France, and died July 30, 1759, in Curaçao. She is buried at Beth Haim Cemetery in Curaçao, section IV, row C, grave 621.
But there's a problem with the dates. Esther's first husband, Jacob Rodriguez Marques, died around 1725. Isaac was born in 1732, seven years later. His father is unknown.
Esther later married Ishac de Shemuel Levy Maduro, who is buried in the adjacent plot at Beth Haim (IV-C-620). She also had a daughter, Rachel Marquez, born around 1725 in Barbados.
Bernard Baruch, the Wall Street financier (a cousin through Isaac Marks's granddaughter Sarah Wolfe), claimed descent from Isaac Rodriguez Marques in his autobiography. But the dates don't work for a direct line.
Matt Reider researched this extensively in 2022. He corresponded with Ron Gomes Casseres at the Beth Haim cemetery in Curaçao and reviewed genealogist Isaac S. Emmanuel's records. Emmanuel's own books contain apparent contradictions. His History of the Jews of the Netherlands Antilles (1970), page 943, says Esther married Jacob in 1722. But his Precious Stones of the Jews of Curaçao (1957), page 507, lists her as the wife of Ishac de Shemuel.
If the connection holds, the Levy Maduro line goes back through rabbis in Amsterdam to Portugal in the 1400s:
Matt took a DNA test in the 2010s. It showed 99 percent Ashkenazi Jewish with no Sephardic markers. This casts doubt on the Portuguese connection, though DNA tests from that era had limitations. And the Sephardic line, if real, would be many generations back.
The story is fascinating family lore and serious genealogical research. But it should be presented as an open question, not established fact.
Where I was born. Where my grandfather Israel founded his dry goods business. Where my father Frederick built Kahn Brothers Department Store and served the Jewish and civic community. Where the Kahn Foundation was established and where the Kahn Collection now resides at the Oakland Museum.
Home of Joseph H. Sampson and his brother Samuel, merchants and shipping operators. Site of one of the earliest Jewish communities in America. The Jewish Cemetery there was established in 1772. Joseph is buried there.
Where Dr. Arthur Fischel Sampson practiced medicine and where he married Babette Levy on April 4, 1887. Where their five children were born, including my husband John. The family left after the great flood of 1900.
Where the Sampson family settled in 1902 after leaving Galveston. Where John and I married and raised our children. Where John practiced medicine and served as Chief of Staff at Mount Zion Hospital. Where I volunteered and attended Congregation Emanu-El. Where we both died and were memorialized.
Where Esther de Salomon Levy Maduro died in 1759 and is buried at Beth Haim Cemetery. A key location in the possible Sephardic connection.
The largest Jewish community in early South Carolina. Home of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, where the Sampson family names appear in the records. Birthplace of Esther "Hetty" Cohen and Deborah Marques Cohen. Where Isaac Marks died in 1776.